A Woman's Place

May 11, 2020
Journalist Cheung debuts with a sharp and reflective examination of the state of fourth-wave feminism. She explores issues that particularly affect young women, including Title IX restrictions limiting the ability of high schools and colleges to address campus sexual violence, “anti-sex health education” in public schools, and reproductive health policies that simultaneously infantilize high school girls while insisting they take adult responsibility. Cheung also profiles young activists, discusses why some “cool girls” remain skeptical of feminism and tolerate misogyny, and examines the renewed fight for reproductive justice through the intersectional lenses of racial and economic inequality and privacy rights. Chapters about dating choices and sexual pleasure address the intimate concerns of young women who identify as feminists, and Cheung casts a critical eye on men who claim that the energy of the #MeToo movement makes it a “scary time” to be a man as well as those whose performative approaches to allyship silence the women they claim to support. Cheung skillfully communicates the urgency of these issues, and demands respect for her Gen-Z cohorts from an older generation of feminists. This galvanizing call to arms will resonate with young activists.

June 5, 2020

Journalist Cheung explores what it means to identify as an intersectional feminist in the age of Trump. The first chapter dismantles the idea that one event characterizes a movement, as the author effectively argues that change happens through small acts of resistance and the multiple strategies used to disrupt the status quo. She notes that the choice not to be political is "inherently political," a statement that serves in some ways as a thesis for the book, which spotlights ways in which her personal and political choices overlap. Additionally, she offers well-documented historical, legal, and contextual details to expand on her experiences and acknowledge her relative privilege and access in many situations. Cheung returns to the point that "almost no one is fully victim or oppressor in the patriarchy," as she delves into issues including the wage gap, access to abortion, reproductive justice, and sexual violence, suggesting that gendered experiences are, again, complicatedly intersectional and therefore require solutions that move beyond either/or. VERDICT Accessible and important, this resource would be a suitable addition to introductory-level women's, gender, and sexuality studies courses, and will also appeal to readers interested in expanding on or challenging narratives about the waves of feminism.--Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

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